He Sent His Maid Into a Christmas Blizzard for One Bottle of Wine, but the Mafia Boss Learned Who Had Really Ordered Her to Die

The service door shut behind Claire, and the warm, golden atmosphere of DeLuca House vanished instantly, swallowed whole by the roaring black night.

The wind hit her like a physical wall. It drove ice crystals into her face with the force of needles, blinding her before she had even taken five steps away from the threshold. She pulled her thin black server’s cardigan tighter around her chest, her fingers already going numb as the bitter Atlantic cold bit through the cheap cotton fabric.

She didn't have her winter coat. Vivian had made sure of that.

"Walk quickly," Vivian’s voice echoed in her memory, soft, refined, and malicious.

Claire kept her head down, squinting into the blinding blizzard that enveloped the expansive south lawn. Usually, the manicured grounds of the forty-acre estate were easy to navigate, lined with slate pathways and lit by delicate iron lanterns. But tonight, the world had been erased. The storm had dumped nearly two feet of snow in a matter of hours, drifting into deep, treacherous banks that obscured every familiar landmark.

Just get to the carriage house, Claire told herself, her breathing coming in ragged, painful gasps as the frozen air burned her lungs. Get the bottle of 1990 Bellamy Reserve. Protect Lily.

The thought of her younger sister kept her legs moving forward, plunging through knee-deep snowdrifts. Lily, with her sweet smile and fragile health, living at Harbor Ridge. If Vivian carried out her threat—if she used the DeLuca family's vast influence or cut off the private funding Claire relied on—Lily would be cast out onto the street. Claire would endure any indignity, any cruelty, to shield her sister from the brutal reality of their father’s legacy.

Her feet felt like blocks of ice. She couldn't feel her toes anymore.

The carriage house was a stone structure built a quarter-mile from the main mansion, near the edge of the coastal woods. Under normal conditions, it was a five-minute walk. In the middle of a historic nor'easter, it was an obstacle course of zero visibility and sub-zero wind chills.

Claire stumbled over a hidden stone border, dropping to her knees in the freezing drift.

"Get up," she wheezed out loud, but her voice was swallowed instantly by the gale. "Get up, Claire."

She pushed herself back to her feet, her hands bright red and burning before going completely dead to sensation. The bitter cold began to sap her strength at an alarming rate. Her body was full-figured, soft, and unaccustomed to such extreme physical stress, but her stubborn heart refused to quit. She forced her leaden legs to trudge forward, step after step, blinding step after step.

Finally, through the swirling white curtain, the dark outline of the carriage house emerged like a ghost ship.

Relief washed over her, short-lived as it was. She dragged herself to the side door, her trembling hand reaching for the brass handle. She pulled.

Locked.

Claire gasped, her heart dropping into her stomach. "No... no, no, no."

She grabbed the handle with both hands, using all her weight to shake it, but the heavy oak door remained firmly shut. She turned her face away from the wind, pressing her forehead against the icy wood. Mr. Howard had said the cellar inventory had been moved here, but he hadn't left the side door unlocked. Vivian must have known. Vivian had to have known.

She had sent her out here to retrieve a bottle that was locked behind heavy timber, in a storm that was growing more violent by the minute.

Claire backed away, looking for another entry. The double garage doors were sealed shut for the winter. The narrow windows were too high, barred with decorative ironwork. She was trapped outside in a blizzard, dressed in nothing more than a server's uniform, miles away from help, and hundreds of yards from the warmth of the main house.

She turned back toward the golden glow of the mansion, but the lights were already fading behind the impenetrable wall of white.

Panic, cold and sharp, seized her chest. She couldn't stay here; she would freeze to death against the stone wall. She had to make it back. She had to return to the mansion and tell them the door was locked.

She turned her body back into the teeth of the wind.

The return journey was exponentially harder. The wind had shifted, blowing directly into her face, blinding her completely. Ice built up on her eyelashes, sticking them together whenever she blinked. She lost the path within twenty yards.

Left? Right?

Everything was white. Up was white, down was white, the world was a swirling vortex of freezing void.

Her knees buckled. She hit the snow again, hard. This time, her body refused her command to stand. The extreme cold was working its way into her core, slowing her thoughts, dulling the terror into a strange, peaceful heavy tiredness.

So sleepy, a gentle voice in her mind whispered.

No, another part screamed. Lily!

She dragged herself forward on her elbows, crawling through the deep powder. The cold stopped hurting, replaced by a terrifying, painless numbness. She closed her eyes just for a second to rest them from the whipping wind.